


Amaranth

by RennIreigh



Series: Patchouli [12]
Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:55:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25784761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RennIreigh/pseuds/RennIreigh
Summary: In which another knock at Sabrina's door recalls old memories.
Series: Patchouli [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/22751
Kudos: 3





	Amaranth

**Author's Note:**

> I want to leave this series with a note. Patchouli as a work was originally intended to be a one-shot. That one-shot ended up being voted to win a Best Romance award from the Serebii Forums, which still amuses me 15 years later. I wrote a couple of other one-shots, paused on Lucky, and then decided that Sabrina and I had some more work to do. 
> 
> Once I made that decision, I was writing with the intent to continue it to this point: I wrote this final installment, Amaranth, at the same time I wrote Haunting. However, shortly after writing Equilibrium, I realized there was some tension between the story I had been telling- the story about the person Sabrina becomes, and then acknowledges that she is- and the story that I had set out to continue, which was ultimately going to justify that Best Romance award from all those years ago, and which seemed much less of a necessary story to tell after Equilibrium. Equilibrium, frankly, was a fitting ending to Sabrina's story in a lot of ways. So, should I leave it there? 
> 
> I left it there. I left it there for about 6 years, undecided. I think I have now decided: Shatter, Coda, and Amaranth make up one long epilogue to a story about growth that culminated in Equilibrium. But, I'll let you make up your own mind about where it ends.
> 
> Thank you for staying with Sabrina and me all this way.

Kamon comes to visit every Friday now, but this Friday is a surprise. Sabrina has never opened the door to find him accompanied, but they’ve blown in together on the gust of a snowstorm. Sabrina knows the slender woman on his arm, at least tangentially; they’ve seen each other before, fought each other before, but she so rarely sees them now that it takes her a moment to recognize her fellow Gym Leaders outside of their professional contexts.

“Jasmine,” she begins, but Kamon cuts her off. “Sabrina, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

Jasmine nods to her, peer to peer. “We’ve already met,” Jasmine points out, mindless of the cold, of the snow buffeting her back. Sabrina almost raises an eyebrow- she didn’t expect such directness from the calmness of the other woman’s aura. She opens her senses to read it again. “At the Conference, every year.”

“But not informally,” Sabrina says. “Kamon, go on.”

Flushed, speaking carefully against his discomfited stammer, Kamon says “Sabrina, I’d like to present to you Jasmine, of Olivine Gym. Jasmine, Sabrina, of Saffron.”

“A pleasure,” Jasmine says politely.

Sabrina only hesitates a moment. “Likewise,” she says. “Please, come in.”

“There’s something else,” Kamon says in a rush.

“Can it be said inside, out of the cold?”

Kamon nearly falls over the doorstep, and Jasmine only smiles.

  
  


They arrange themselves in Sabrina’s tiny sitting room as she strains the tea leaves. Kamon tries not to drip on the furniture as Jasmine, next to him, sits serene, hands folded on her lap. It doesn’t take much effort for Sabrina to hold back the laughter, not when Kamon is taking this so seriously.

She pours the tea, passes the cups, tries not to notice Kamon’s aura pulsing with agitation. Jasmine must feel it, too, but Sabrina has no surprise to spare for her lack of reaction, not after feeling the young woman’s steel core. She appreciates the discipline.

“So,” Sabrina says, once they’ve all sipped the steaming tea.

Kamon draws a deep breath and Sabrina again tries not to smile. “Sabrina, I’d like to present to you Jasmine, of Olivine Gym.”

It’s clearly important to him that he stick to his script, so she only raises an eyebrow, inviting him to continue. Jasmine’s expression hasn’t flickered from the serene mask of polite interest she’s been wearing since she came in the door. _But her body says this is important_ , Sabrina thinks, noticing the set of her shoulders.

Kamon’s next words come out in a rush. “Who is also my intended.”

Now Jasmine’s expression breaks, if only a little, her eyelids furrowing only slightly. _Ah._

“Then it is a pleasure to meet you outside of business, although of course we have met many times on it,” Sabrina say. She smiles, sets down her tea, extends her hand.

Kamon breathes; Jasmine relaxes. They sip their tea. They talk- they talk for hours. When finally Sabrina clears away the remains of dinner, the storm is beginning to die down outside. Jasmine helps to dry the dishes. She doesn’t chatter, for which Sabrina is grateful, but still the young woman reminds her a little of Erika- an air of diffidence over a solid sense of self. Sabrina says as much, and Jasmine smiles- “I do not know her well, but I know her daughter.”

Sabrina and Koga still write, still spar on occasion; still Sabrina has trouble thinking of Koga’s young daughter, for whom he had arrived home every night at ten no matter the circumstances, as old enough to run a gym of her own. It is a reminder of how old Kamon is now, how long it’s been since the fall of Team Rocket, how long it’s been since she returned Giovanni to rest just outside Viridian City. She doesn’t feel old, not exactly, but she feels for the first time that she has _lived_ and lived years in a way that the disciplined woman in front of her does not yet know.

When they stand to leave, Kamon faces Sabrina and steadies himself before saying, “There isn’t going to be a ceremony; we decided we didn’t want the fuss. But it was important to me that- that you know, and that you know before.”

She nods to him, but it’s Jasmine to whom she replies. She knows that Kamon knows that there is nothing more to say, but Jasmine, on their first new meeting, seems to expect a reply. “May it last,” she says.

  
  


Sabrina knows then that there _is_ nothing left to say as they bundle into coats and prepare to step into the dying snowstorm, at least nothing of substance beyond pleasantries, but Kamon turns suddenly. “Sabrina,” he says. “My father. I never asked you, but you- you loved him, didn’t you?”

She’s startled- she could blame it, later, on being startled, but the time for that subterfuge has passed. It passed long ago, perhaps longer ago than she knew. There’s no façade left to maintain in front of what is, after all, the rest of her family, together with Karin, with Will, with Morty, with Mewtwo's faint presence across mountains and continents, with the remnants of basement levels in Celadon City and of Cinnabar Island and Cerulean Cave.

“Yes,” Sabrina says, and she smiles at Kamon and at Jasmine, too. “You both will find it worth it.”


End file.
